NEDXXX

Bombastic drum licks, a slow groove, church bells, the first traces of stringed instruments: the album has begun.

NEDXXX is a peculiar name for a band, no matter how off kilter the presented material is, but upon closer inspection it is revealed that the name is derived by none other than Norma Evangelium Diaboli (or NoEvDia for that matter). With a logo that isn't a logo but a medieval-esque etching of a demon holding a dagger, no confirmed line-up and a name that only refers to the label handling the release, it is a taxing affair to try and pin point why this album is the way it is. Fragmented, unorthodox and utterly unhinged.

Truth be told, the drumming and guitar playing bring a certain person to mind and I can think of a couple of contenders for the vocal duties but that is not what reviews are for and I do not intend to spend any more time speculating.

So where were we?

Drawing heavily from the Kabbalistic tradition this album is focused on, inspired by and revolving around the primeval source of darkness from which everything has emerged. As such, the music is by necessity non linear and definitely not easy to follow, an acquired taste perhaps but how could it be any other way? Each member of the collective (if it is indeed a collective and if there are more than three, maybe four musicians involved, we may never know) has brought their individual talents to the table, that goes without question. Apart from that, the listener will also encounter a multitude of samples, from violin tremolos to jungle beats and fragments of a speech regarding the manifestations of the devil in Man's life (the origin of said speech remains unknown to me, so they could as well have recorded that themselves).

It is a remarkable feat to be able to play this way: first and foremost, the drumming is exceptionally good, remaining versatile enough to carry the cacophony of the rest of the intruments forward without residing too much on ideas that have already been repeated by others ad nauseam. Of course the occasional blast beat will make its appearance but because the record is written the way it is, no part can really overstay its welcome. The stringed instruments on the other hand are given more freedom, already having the percussive backbone to flourish upon. Take the first or the fifth track for example, or even the sixth one, which feature some of my favorite lead guitar work in the entire thing. The soundscape that NEDXXX conjure up might initially seem vague and not really grounded on any form or frame. It is indeed so, but that's a necessary sacrifice to make in order to leave as much room for evolving layers of music upon other evolving layers of music. The use of melody is not abolished however, there are even parts one may consider to be pristine and beautiful, others a bit more dun and mysterious, however there is also an entirely different beast hiding in the details here, manifesting in the form of little embellishments, groaning drones, screeching harmonics and orchestral cymbals among others. The album is just short of 31 minutes long and packs the aural information of a work thrice its length. Swinging between auditory barbarisms and uneasy moments of seeming peace, making use of abrupt lurches and eruptions into frenzy give it a rather unique identity. They build and then demolish entire walls of sound, sometimes over a short period time and on other occasions in the span of a second. I haven't really found many records that were able to do that and make it work so well. And let's not overlook the work of the vocalist. The vocals are of crucial importance, not least because of the lyrical content of course, but how about their sonic contribution to the entire work? Again, the fifth track should be a convincing argument.

It feels proper to mention how brilliant the production and mixing on this are. Whoever is responsible for this record's engineering should be praised, if anything because having to manage all of this material and making it work like that is a feat of hard work and experience. Loads and loads of experience. Which makes me think that if one thing's certain about NEDXXX is that every person that was involved in this was probably around when the second wave of black metal was beginning to thrive. You can almost tell that these people, whoever they are, have partaken in many recordings across a couple of decades. It would be safe to assume perhaps, that most of them have been in the roster of the label before, be it for one release or many.

Finishing off, I can't really say wether this album is for any listener of the genre. Followers of NoEvDia are probably aware of this and already enjoying it. In any case this is leagues away from what most black metal sounds like. And I won't be claiming it's better or worse: it's just different. It's an album that I do think about every once in a while, despite having no concrete information about the project and with potentially nothing to look forward to from them, ever again. I think this should be regarded as a compliment. On the other hand, being a project with no identities attached to it could mean more releases with entirely different people involved. These are mere musings and what-ifs of course, there's no point to engage in that conversation.

The conversation we should be engaging in on the other hand is how the black metal scene has never stopped expanding its vocabulary, discovering uncharted territories or even conjuring new creative templates out of thin air. How many people could have foreseen such a record being made in 2019, say, when the first half of the 90s were happening? And I assume that having exhausted the vault of ideas of the second wave framework gave way to what this very record label was doing from 2003 and onwards, but this takes it a step further. The amount of focus this must have required would surmount to a complete burnout for all involved I presume, or it could be in the works for many many years, being slowly pieced together as time went by. So many unanswerable questions for an album with the runtime of 30:53. But this album also gives an answer to the reviews titular question. Not only explicitly just after the tenth minute mark, but also throughout its course. It is fabricated, fastened and laden onto its very essence: breaking pattern, destroying unity, corrupting gestalt and producing discord.

That is the Diabolic.

Proclaimed as poison, tool, and a spear through creation’s quivering breast, there is no certain ego attached to this ‘NEDXXX’ experience beyond its clear intention to reeducate the believer — To pull back the burning hand that’d feebly block the obsidian rays gleaming from Lucifer’s unclenched might. NEDXXX is an unknown constant, a suffocation of unseen and unnamed amorphous tides growling aloud its trance-like, ever-stumbling march of fantastic sonic heresies newly unbound from the will of the Unholy and festooned with the mark of a collective spiritual animus; A discordance. The true Satanic philosophy is adrift and far from whole in the mangling hands of the many, stretched and shredded into feathery wings and eye-darkening shadows amongst countless pretenders and surface level sleeve-bearers. In truth, the entire ethos of ‘NEDXXX’ appears to craft and conjure a great collective ward of protection for this φ that’d examine the unthinkable, stare into the unseeable, and pull forth the ghastly ‘unheard of’ by the neck and juice its rotten flesh for black ichor enough to fuel the great oily fire that is this frightening and cryptic Satanic musical art.

A massive and likely long in development thread of abstract artisan black metal extremity glowers as its own collaborative circle of shadowy magi, an unknown but clearly very extensive cast, whirl and conjure their credo within deathly serious standards. ‘NEDXXX’ is an unthinkable chaos ensorcelled between uncountable left hands spanning nations, continents, and perhaps even tighter circles abroad that reveal their identities in art aimed upon the indoctrinated. If your ear is pressed against the associated, the known, and the ‘thought to be imagined‘ Satanic pillars of against-the-grain black metal today these voices, tones and multifarious modus will be familiar. At the very least I recognize most of these vocalists and sonic personalities easily but, making a little game of ‘identify the musician’ would defeat the intended tone of the full piece, which spans just over 30 minutes.

On the other hand I’d happily speculate upon stylistic similarities, for the sake of experiential placement; It is no stretch to consider the auld-garde of End All Life Productions along with their parent monolith (NED is meant to be quite obvious, eh?) leading most roads toward a certain experimental and manic era of Abigor, of all places. The resulting pieces are perhaps more linear in arrangement than the obvious nearby example of more recent collaborative Mystískaos releases (Guðveiki, Andavald, etc.) and yet nearer to a most fiery-raw Blut Aus Nord. The greater vision of the piece may appear to be leading itself in a downward spiral but this sensation comes from the seamless hand-off between artists who are seen through distinct guitar tone, drum production, and imaginative distortions of sound. These works indicate muscle memory trained away from norms into ranting abrasions more often than not and the lyrics are fitting depictions of devotion, dissent, and the holistic madness that comes with the unbalancing of darkness and light. The great apex of this feast of phi comes with a Heraclitian incantation of all things, casting all asunder, leaving me to wonder if it were an act of one madman or the legion of Satanic actors I’d presupposed. At this most auspiciously fatal point all resigns into darkness, uncounted and all the same.

Therein lies the genius of the solitude of the nameless piece, consigned and unknown for any trait beyond its discord — A rending of the coagulant forms that bind us all into identity. It is a true act of Satanism to be individual but, a truly effective act to be unaccounted for the sake of mysterious art. For all of the grubby reaching hands of modern augurs desperate to belong, their mouths gnawing at meaning without teeth to spare, ‘NEDXXX’ cannot help but be a personal and perhaps unknowable piece of dissent. Personal being the key word, though, as this isn’t an entirely inhuman act due to many glory-bound personalities that still shine like soul-bound jewels atop an entombed king’s corpse within the full listen of this NEDXXX event. It feels on the verge of a great work were it slightly more cohesive though I understand that and implication of ‘unity’ is absurd in this particular context.

Where I gain some personal frustration with the listening experience comes by way of the sampled sermons and mockery that adorns some transitional pieces with spoken illumination of the unholy cult. I’d rather never hear a sampled speech in music as it is a too commonly used relic of ‘bedroom’ extreme metal and today’s cinematic post-rock; To be fair this works within the layered and heavily thematic spirit of the album but it does not raise the value of the otherwise experimental-but-meditative tonal rip of ‘NEDXXX’, at least for my own tastes. This does not mar the recommendation of it as NEDXXX offer a beautiful document of the great elevation of black metal in the present where defiant art has not yet been maligned out of existence. A moderately high recommendation and I hesitate slightly because it is an abstract piece that does not for a second ‘beg’ to be listened to. Those compelled will be undoubtedly drawn by the heavy spirituality inherent to each piece and no doubt the space-rock blown black metallic random violence that drives the affair will be too much for all but the most deranged.

Attribution: https://grizzlybutts.com/2019/12/24/nedxxx-nedxxx-2019-review/